“You will go, Marian?” he said inquiringly, turning to her as he spoke. “You will want to exercise your own taste and judgment in the selection of articles of dress; at least so I presume, as such is the case with my eldest daughter,” he concluded with a smiling glance at Lulu. “And she, I dare say, wants to be of the party.”
“If you are going, papa,” Lulu replied; “otherwise I’d rather stay at home, if I may.”
“You may do exactly as you please, go or stay; so may Gracie.”
“But you don’t say whether you are going of not, papa.”
“I shall stay at home, as there are some matters for me to attend to, perhaps nearly as important as those which will keep my wife at home,” he said in a playful tone, turning toward her again as he spoke.
“I am not sorry to hear it, my dear,” Violet responded.
“And I don’t want to go,” said Grace. “I never do like to go to the city without my father to take care of me,” with an affectionate look up into his face. “Besides, I’ve promised to help Elsie arrange her doll-house and make some new clothes for her dollies.”
“Ah? and of course promises must be kept; but as you do not want to go without papa you will not feel it a hardship, I hope, to keep yours to your little sisters.”
“But I wouldn’t want Gracie to stay at home if she wanted to go,” said little Elsie; “no indeed I wouldn’t, papa.”